Copyrights and Wrongs

Copyrights and Wrongs
Mark Rasch, 2007-12-11

On October 1, 2007, Jammie Thomas -- a single mother living in Brainerd, Minnesota -- was sued in civil court for copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America. Three days later, the jury returned the verdict; Ms. Thomas was liable for willfully infringing the copyrights on 24 songs. The fine: $222,000.

Colapse all | Post comment

Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-11
Anonymous (1 replies)

Do you see any hope of changes that will bring Copyright laws back in line with reality?...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-13
Mark D. Rasch

When the interests of the copyright holders is aligned with that of users, there may be change. Thus, if users refuse restricted content, or boycott restrictive EULA's, these things will change. Technology may make some of these restrictions obsolete as well. ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-13
César Caballero (1 replies)

Mr. Rasch:

(Sorry, English is not my native language.)

1. In Mexico City, everybody knows where illegally copied music or movies are on sale. Could the record industry (American or Mexican) sue the major of the City for protecting the piracy dealers? (If you know who the criminal is and do not...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-13
Anonymous (1 replies)

Mr. Rasch:

(Sorry, English is not my native language.)

Thats OK.. law isnt mine either..

1. In Mexico City, everybody knows where illegally copied music or movies are on sale. Could the record industry (American or Mexican) sue the major of the City for protecting the piracy dealers? (If ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: Re: Copyrights and Wrongs 2008-01-02
Anonymous

"4. Suppose a person have a trademark named ?music?. Could that person sue anybody who uses this word in mass media? (Don?t laugh, this is real: a Mexican politician registered his name as a mark in order to avoid bad commentaries.)

Generally you cant "trademark" something that is descriptive. T...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-13
Anonymous (1 replies)

I agree with Mark's article but one thing I never see discussed is the fact that Music and Movies are not forever. When sales of a particular work drop below a certain level the work is deleted from the catalog and may be collected and destroyed or sold in the cut out section of some record stores. ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-17
Mark D. Rasch (1 replies)

First, of course this is NOT legal advice. However, the fact that a copyrighted work is "not in print" or not acessible by the copyright holder does not mean that the work loses any copyright protection. The goal of copyright law was to allow the copyright holder to commerically exploit their work...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Re: Re: Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-17
Anonymous

Not exactly. The *goal* of US copyright law is to promote the creation of the work. The *means* is to give the creator temporary rights to commercially exploit it. That is if you believe the Constitution, which all three branches of our government seem to find inconvenient at the moment....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Can you expand on the difference between an implicit copyright and a registered one? That law change a few decades ago caused an implicit copyright to be created upon creation of the work, but I thought you still had to formally register it and its derivative works in order to get the big damages....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-17
Anonymous

The thing I find most discomforting about Mrs. Thomas was that there is probably a 99% chance she didn't even know she was sharing songs, only that she was downloading, because most of these p2p applications like kazaa will do this by default and in my experience the 'average' user doesn't know the ...

[ more ] [ reply ]

A recent case http://www.citmedialaw.org/sites/citmedialaw.org/files/2007-
11-16-Report%20and%20Recommendation%20of%20Magistrate%20Judg
e%20--%20District%20of%20Idaho.pdf
demonstrates how posing a DMCA takedown letter sent from a lawyer can raise copyright infringment and discovery issues. When a la...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Copyrights and Wrongs 2007-12-21
Killa-Ho Yo

...and remember, if you just have to do a crime don't download music....kill someone. That way you get to break the law and only do 1/60th the time....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Copyrights and Wrongs 2008-01-05
Antonio Prescavario

Nice article, Mark....

[ more ] [ reply ]

Enough legalities 2008-01-08
Anonymous

More computer security less legal mumbo jumbo please, please, please...

[ more ] [ reply ]

Copyrights and Wrongs 2008-01-10
Anonymous

thank god for oh CANADA!!!!...

[ more ] [ reply ]